Clark and Bruce

	"Come in, come in and have a seat." Bruce waited in his impeccably 
furnished office as the TV network executive slumped into a chair and swung his 
feet onto the desk.
	Bruce eyed the desk as the handcrafted leather brogues scraped a thin 
layer of street-grime onto the Edwardian desktop, while Clark rumpled his $3000 
Hugo Boss suit as he slouched into the chair, creasing the antique leather 
upholstery. Typical.
	Subconsciously Bruce sat up even straighter, and brushed imaginary dust 
off his sleeve. "So Clark, what brings you all this way? I hope I can be of some 
service." 
	Clark reflected for a few seconds and then started. "Bruce, umm, I'm not 
sure how to say this but, ah, I need help."
	Bruce raised one eyebrow. It had taken him weeks in front of a mirror to 
get that small movement just right.
	"Well, you see, something is going on, but I don't know what"
	Bruce mused for a pleasant second on the widespread implications of that 
statement.
	"There's just, I don't know, something. You know. The punks, the crims, in 
the street. They're changing. They're becoming younger, more vicious, weirder. 
It's been happening I suppose for years but it really sunk in the other day when 
a group of twelve-year-olds had a shoot-out with automatic weapons in a crowded 
Sizzler over whether Ren or Stimpy was the best. Two of our reporters were 
there, one was hit. It sort of made me think and I realised that it has been 
happening for years. What is it?"
	Bruce frowned. "Ren or Who? What sport do they play?"
	"Oh you know, Ren and Stimpy. They're cartoon characters, You know 
cartoons? Like they had in the Movies..." Bad subject. Oops.
	Bruce's hands clenched into fists and moved halfway to a guarding block, 
and then he relaxed. There was a good reason he didn't watch TV, and never went 
to the movies. It was too painful. He took a deep breath and began to wipe his 
hands together. "Obviously I have been keeping a watch on the crime statistics 
Clark. I am perfectly aware that the mean age for violent offenders has dropped 
from 24.7 in 1970 to 20.3 last year. And if you remove child custody cases the 
averages fall to 21.6 in 1970 and 16.2 last year. In addition the number of 
first time offenders performing murder, rape and serious assault has risen from 
0.2% to an incredible 12.8%. But as your fellow newsman observed, 'There are 
lies, damned lies, ....'"
	"Who, Jimmy? Or Lois? And that's newsperson Bruce. What do you mean?" 
Clark scratched his head in confusion.
	"I mean that in the 1970s you would be arrested for the first time you 
shoplifted. These days you practically have to commit a violent offence to be 
arrested in some places, so naturally the percentage of violent offenders will 
increase. The age decrease is harder to explain, there are the socioeconomic 
effects of course, and the prevailing psychological paradigm. But as Jesus and 
Paretto tell us, there are always poor, and exporting our culture to other 
countries results in a decrease in violence, so there are no consistent 
hypotheses to explain the observed phenomena."
	Clark stared blankly. "Yes...I suppose so."
	Talking to Clark was like... well Ford Fairlaine put it best, but Bruce 
didn't watch movies, so it was pure coincidence that the phrase 'Why have you 
come to my planet?' ran across his mind.
	"Look Clark, are you sure this is our problem? Isn't it up to teachers and 
parents to bring children up properly? City planners to remove slum areas, 
economists to provide employment. We can't do everything, I am not rich enough 
to give every young kid a job. It is up to society to determine what has gone 
wrong and fix it. We can only deal with specific symptoms. That is the actual 
people who go wrong."
	"But we can't Bruce, the streets are getting worse and worse. As a T.V. 
executive I can broadcast a constant stream of nonviolent programs with positive 
role models, and either the network will go broke or we'll be sued for not 
representing social minorities."
	"Social minorities?"
	"Yes, homosexuals, junkies, crack babies, the worthwhileness impaired. If 
we don't show enough positive viewpoints on underage sex on our programs the 
National Paedophile League will sue us for millions."
	'I can't wait till the Japanese take over.' Bruce muttered under his 
breath.
	"That was a very unpatriotic thing to say Bruce, I'm shocked at you." 
Under your breath wasn't good enough with Clark.
	"Look Clark, I have an idea. Can you get me into the Supercomputers at the 
National Defence Laboratory at Springfield? If I have a few days with the 
Interactive-neural-net-expert-system I may be able to work something out."
	"The INNES! But that's top secret. I only know about it because they 
needed me to feed some data into the system. And a few days is a very long time, 
INNES now takes only 15 minutes to project stockmarket prices ahead by up to 5 
days, although that's only in times of normal trading. What do you want to do 
that could take days?"
	"I want to reset the system's memory, don't worry it's all backed up, and 
then feed in all the demographico-socio-economo-criminal data there is, and then 
get the system to try to solve for consistencies and relationships without being 
influenced by any modern theories or ideas. If it goes back to basic data and 
works its way up it may end up with entirely different viewpoints. And they may 
be correct."

	Clark assumed Bruce knew whatever the hell it was he was talking about and 
set off to see if he could arrange matters.


	Three weeks later they met again, this time in Clark's office. The 
difference was obvious. For a start everything was at least 80 years newer. 
There was a lot more plastic, and no animal skins at all. It was also a lot 
messier. The only similarity was the computer consoles, both were at least two 
years ahead of what were commercially available. Clark's was a Hewlett-Packard, 
Bruce's was Korean and half the price.
	"Well Bruce, what's happening, what's going on?"
	"That's the problem Clark, that is why the sociologists and psychologists 
haven't been able to solve the problem. Nothing's happening, something has 
stopped happening. We are just returning to normal. It is obvious when you 
examine the urban data from a large enough scale. All cities have always had 
crime problems like this. Gangland massacres, child prostitution, rampant drug 
use, beggars, disease, corruption. Take someone from the ghettos of Harlem, or 
East L.A. and transport them to 17th Century London, 10th century Byzantium, 1st 
Century Rome, Troy, Babylon, even Peking and Cairo 4000 years ago. They will see 
exactly the same situation, or worse, just with different technology. The 
question isn't what has gone wrong, the question is what went right. Why, for a 
few decades in the middle of the 20th century, in a few of the richer countries, 
did city life suddenly improve?"
	"So we can try to get it back again!"
	"Perhaps. Alternately we can just try to control the problem. The INNES 
came to the conclusion that we aren't doing that as well as we could either. 
Historically many societies have been able to keep the crime in check a lot 
better than we have, of course some were a lot worse too, but they tend to have 
collapsed soon afterwards."
	"A comforting thought."
	"Yes. But getting back to the issue, what we need aren't new ways of 
confronting these new problems, it's old ways of confronting old problems. Of 
course we have to select the old ways that worked."
	"But isn't this just the nostalgia kick that all the conservatives have 
been trying for years?"
	"They're trying to use the methods of 18th and 19th century Europe, a time 
when crime was out of control. If the methods didn't work then why should they 
work now? Especially as we have watered down those methods to make them 
acceptable to civilised human beings. No the methods we should be looking for 
are those that tamed the Wild West."
	"What? Gunfights at High Noon?"
	"No! No, no, no, no. That is just treating the symptoms. We are already 
doing that. And our methods are better than theirs. It was not the sixgun that 
tamed the west, it was the introduction of organised finance, land conveyancing, 
communication and farming. A gang of outlaws can not survive if money is sent by 
cheque or over the wire, if a rustled herd of cattle can be traced, if the 
government has a record of who owns what farm, and you can't rustle soybeans 
anyway. Without portable, untraceable, wealth, crime is reduced to petty theft 
and casual, low level violence."
	"Isn't that just what we are talking about? The casual gunfights in the 
school grounds, and random drive by shootings."
	"No. That is just a symptom, like the duels at 20 paces in the cowboy 
movies. That behaviour occurs because of the prevailing attitudes towards death 
and killing. That attitude exists because of the criminal behaviour that these 
kids see every day, and the criminals are driven by money.
	The same behaviour occurred in the 1920s with the Italian immigrants. 
Because racism and lack of an education deprived these people of jobs, the only 
way for a bright, ambitious and talented young man to succeed was to go into 
crime. The average looser on the street would see that the successful people in 
his community, the guys with money and cars and respect, were bootlegging 
killers. Obviously this would lead to the teenagers becoming involved in 
gunfights and crime. Once the Italians became integrated into society, the 
bright, ambitious types became lawyers and doctors instead of mafiosi, and the 
entire culture changed. Now only the below average losers become involved in 
crime, and this has two significant results. Firstly they just are not as 
successful as their smarter forebears, and secondly the average kids grow up 
thinking about Med school instead of a life of crime. The result is a peaceful, 
law abiding community."
	"But there are still a lot of crime families about. And they are still 
rich and powerful."
	"Yes, but they just run the organisations, they do not actually commit the 
crimes anymore. The actual footsoldiers are Jamaicans, Pueotoricans etc. and 
they are gradually taking over the entire business."
	Bruce sat back, satisfied, only to notice a layer of dust over the top of 
Clark's shelving. Was this man slack about everything? Then he saw the look on 
Clark's face.
	"It is a very interesting theory Bruce, and I expect it is an old one, 
blame the poorer races, it's all their fault. I didn't expect such racist 
claptrap from you."
	"No. You do not understand, I ..."
	"I understand all right. Just because someone comes from a different 
culture, they become criminals, and if everyone could just become a white 
middleclass suburbanite then all would be O.K. Well then, can you explain the 
period of peace in the 50s and 60s? We had poor people then too you know."
	"We had crime too, it is just that it was absent from our suburbs and our 
city centres, it was concentrated in the slums and poor districts where the 
criminals lived. And because of the lack of a large, criminal money source, such 
as the 1920s liquor dealers and the 1980s cocaine smugglers, they didn't have 
the weapons and the status that results in the problems of mass, youth 
violence."
	"So why did their criminals stay home, while ours don't?"
	"That is the question, Clark. That is the question." Bruce relaxed again, 
he had managed to distract Clark from his politically incorrect findings, and 
back onto the problem at hand. That was the secret to handling Clark, 
distraction. You could never go up against him face to face, so you sent him off 
on wild goose chases and let him forget about what you were up to. Fortunately 
that didn't take too long given that he had the attention span of a goldfish. 
Clark had many remarkable abilities, and could be brilliant in short bursts, but 
he soon lost interest unless someone else was pushing him along. A gifted but 
spoilt child, spoilt by the entire universe.
	"Do you like my new TV? It's the biggest one outside of a major military 
installation." Clark smiled proudly as he gestured towards the other side of his 
office, and then froze. 'Damn' he thought to himself, It was such a hassle 
avoiding all the subjects Bruce was touchy about. The guy was way too caught up 
in his own little psychological problems. Why did he resist therapy? He really 
needed to let go of all his neuroses and accept the real Bruce.
	Bruce stood up. "I must be going now" he said icily. Now he was 
compulsively straightening his suit and wiping dirt from his spotless hands. 
"Let me know if you get any ideas." Bruce then hurried from the building, trying 
to wipe the slime and grit from his body.
	24 stories up, Clark stood looking out his window. 'What was the stuck up 
rich boy muttering about now? The question? What question? Ahh! That's right. 
Why did yesterdays criminals stay home? What happened? It must be something 
obviou... Typical. Look at Bruce getting into his car. A Lexus. Japanese! 
Extensively modified no doubt but not an American car. Typical of the decay of 
our society. It started back in the early 70s when the oil crisis hit, everyone 
sold their Cadilacs and Transams in favour of Japanese compacts. It was 
environmentally correct of course, but a disaster for the resale prices, anyone 
could buy a car then. It ruined the car as a status symbol, for the well off 
only. I suppose that was a good thing as it reduced the inequality in society. 
Now what was I thinking about,... Oh! Look at those flowers on the next block, 
they're in full bloom, it must be nearly summer.'


	Bruce sank back in the spotless leather interior of the Lexus as it 
silently accelerated into the traffic. His hands still felt gritty despite the 
perfumed tissue wipes. He would have to get the car interior cleaned again. He 
also needed another workout tonight, that would make him feel better. He might 
not be able to fix the world, but if he almost killed himself trying, he felt a 
lot better.
	And as for that Mister Perfect Boyscout, with his unshakeable belief in 
whatever the current government propaganda said, he was really getting to be a 
pain in the neck. Though the fact that he asked for help was a refreshing 
development. And it had to be admitted that the current government line was a 
lot easier to live with, or rather easier to avoid, than during the cold war. He 
might be unable to accept the importance of culture, but he could see the 
relevance of the major points of the argument. That something happened in the 
middle of the 20th century that separated the criminals from the rich and 
middleclass, that whatever it was it has stopped happening, and that a big part 
of the problem is that a smart, hardworking, young kid can make a million in 
crime and so all his classmates try to copy him.
	Of course explaining the concept of hardworking to Clark might take a lot 
of time. He had never had to work at anything in his life. Some people made the 
same accusation of Bruce, but they didn't know the true story. The hell of 
trying to do everything as well as his parents would have done it, of keeping up 
with all the world's current events while just looking at a filmclip filled your 
mind with blood, of..."Alfred! Stop the car here, I'll run to the hotel."
	Alfred resignedly pulled the car over to the side of the road. He knew he 
should point out that it was a one hour run, that the master had already run a 
halfmarathon this morning, and that overtraining reduces performance. He also 
knew that it wouldn't help, and so he kept his peace.
	Getting changed in the car, Bruce neatly folded his clothes and put them 
in the bag he kept for just such an occasion. Then, as he took off down the road 
and felt the fresh new sweat break out along his body, he felt the images of 
violence die down, and the grit on his hands disappear.
	As he cruised along he passed through a series of housing projects. The 
sight of a white yuppie jogging through their neighbourhoods was a shock to most 
of the inhabitants. Even those who viewed it as an opportunity soon changed 
their minds when they got closer and saw the shoulder, arm and chest development 
that showed through Bruce's sweat soaked running costume. 	Running, he viewed 
the areas. What had changed in these places since the 60s? For a start there was 
the drugs. He knew the argument: If narcotics were legalised then there wouldn't 
be the profits in pushing. Without the supply of easy money, crime would lose 
its appeal, and the violence would die down. Of course with people treating 
crack like tobacco and heroin like alcohol, the rate of industrial and 
automobile accidents would skyrocket and the economy would plummet. The thing 
about alcohol was that 24 hours later you were sober. Marijuana affected your 
reaction times for up to a week. And Bruce had seen societies in Africa and Asia 
where drug use was accepted. The worst thing was the people themselves, they 
were passive, and useless, and.. and.. and messy! Like this greasy, unwashed 
loser in front of him! 
	The Junkie hadn't lived for years on the street without learning when 
someone's expression meant that they wanted to inflict a lot of pain. He turned 
and bolted into a doorway, and Bruce ran on.
	What else had changed? There were cars here now of course, and graffiti, 
and rubbish and mess. And these people didn't care. They were sloppy and fat and 
skinny and unwashed. They just didn't take the time to do anything properly. 
Repelled by an entire culture that didn't tuck their shirts in or pull their 
socks up, Bruce ran on.


	Clark was looking at a News broadcast when it hit him, the story was about 
the collapse of a housing project block, with the loss of 143 lives. The crucial 
fact was the fatality breakdown. 52 women, 83 children, and 8 men. The project 
was inhabited almost entirely by single mothers.
	Growing up in such an environment meant an almost total lack of male role 
models. There were a few men there, but a brief inquiry confirmed Clark's 
suspicions. The men weren't registered inhabitants, they were believed to be 
drugpushers who had girlfriends in the building. The entire buildings were 
inhabited by young women that had gotten pregnant, dropped out of high school, 
had the baby, got public housing, and two years later had just realised that 
they were probably never going to get a high school diploma, let alone become an 
international supermodel. Then they meet a rich young man who wants to be their 
boyfriend. He can buy them TVs, VCRs, new clothes, take them out, in other words 
do everything that they thought they could never get. All he wants in return is 
sex (of course), and to live in their apartment. Then she realises he is selling 
drugs to all the other women in the building, the ones even more desperate than 
her, because they are older and less attractive. Then she becomes an addict as 
he offers her drugs for free. And the children grow up seeing that the only men 
who get anything are the ones that sell drugs, abuse women, and engage in 
gunfights with the other dealers.
	Bruce was wrong, it wasn't their culture, it was forced on them by 
society.


	Bruce was nearing the top of a hill when he became aware that someone was 
behind him and gaining. A quick glance showed it to be Clark, also in jogging 
clothes.
	"Hi Bruce, I thought I'd come and find you, how are you going." Clark 
panted as he drew along side. Like Bruce, Clark was saturated, but Bruce noticed 
that as the 'sweat' dried it didn't leave behind any salt. As usual, Clark was 
being sloppy about the details. He was willing to wager that, if distracted, 
Clark would forget to pant too.
	Clark explained his discovery and Bruce pretended to be impressed. 
Actually he was, not with the discovery but with the fact that Clark had made 
it. He had tended to discount Clark's success as an investigator as a mixture of 
reporting stories about himself, and of sweet-talking Miss Lane into giving him 
some credit for her work. But this indicated that that particular partnership 
may not be as onesided as he had thought. Then again she probably would have 
known about the projects from the start. Bruce had known for years, though that 
was probably due to financing the replacement of several. There was also the 
fact that when he travelled through a project, he moved much slower than Clark 
did; it gave him more time to look around.
	"So now we know what to do!" exclaimed Clark.
	Bruce had had just enough of Clark for one day and decided to show no 
mercy. "What?" he asked.
	"We stop them from living like that."
	"How?"
	"Well... It's easy. Ah.... We..just....Umm..."
	Bruce waited expectantly.
	"Well it should be easy, all we have to do is .... umm...." Clark got that 
sinking feeling in his stomach that suggested that once again Bruce had tricked 
him into explaining why circles were round. That stuck up bastard. With his 
fancy schools and his riddles and wordplay. It was the sort of thing Bruce did 
to deal with his own distorted self image. Whenever he encountered someone who 
was better than him at anything, Bruce had to cut him down to size. The question 
was how to get out of it. Lois would know what to say at a time like this, she 
was good at stuff like that.
	

	Jimmy woke with a start. The teeth grating electronic tone of the alarm 
clock filled the apartment, and threatened to wake the neighbours. Jimmy dragged 
himself from the bed and stumbled towards the bathroom. There, on the window 
sill of the shower recess sat the source of the noise. His hand hit the snooze 
button, and he thought fleetingly of the warm, soft bed, but his mind perked up 
at what he had to do today, so he turned the shower on instead.
	Standing there with the hot water streaming over his face, he thought 
about how Lois would react when she saw the story he had for her this morning. 
He had stayed up until 3 am finishing it, and it had been worth it, a brilliant 
piece of work detailing the bribes and other pressures that the Mob had used to 
force the state legislature to vote in favour of rent control and for the 
establishment of more huge public housing projects to be established in middle 
class neighbourhoods. As a piece of criminal social engineering it was 
breathtaking in its scope, as a piece of investigative reporting it was of 
international prizewinning standard. Yes this was going to be another " 'gate". 
Housegate maybe, or slumgate, it didn't matter, it was going to have an enormous 
impact, possibly for years, and Lois was not going to be able to ignore it.
	The raucous blare of the alarm clock told him that the shower time was 
over. Hitting the off button he stopped the water and prepared to go to work.


	"But what interest does the Mob have in housing?" Lois was clearly baffled 
as Jimmy tried to explain the story to her.
	"Look," he replied,"Housing projects are a centre for crime, especially 
drug abuse, O.K. If there is an easy source of drugs in the middle of an 
otherwise wealthy and respectable neighbourhood, then the teenagers are far more 
likely to experiment with drugs, especially hard drugs. So the amount of addicts 
in the state will increase, and that means more money for the Mob."
	"O.K. That makes sense now."
	"The kids are also much more likely to become involved with other 
activities such as prostitution. And if it is their children that are involved, 
rather than just slum dwellers, then the middleclass families are less likely to 
vote for harsh criminal laws etc. and that benefits the drug pushers too."
	"Ah. Yeah." She was clearly losing track of the logic now, but she was 
still in charge of the conversation. Jimmy's mouth was talking about drugs, but 
his eyes kept drifting towards the neckline of her silk shirt. Lois leant back 
in her chair and pushed out her chest, she was rewarded with a pause in Jimmy's 
stream of applied social science. "So Jimmy" she purred, "You would like me to 
do some further work with you in this area, perhaps over dinner, tonight, at my 
place?"
	His eyes widened, and he forced out a yes, allowing her to gather up the 
folders and put them away into her desk. "Alright then," she smiled "My place at 
seven, O.K?"
	As soon as Jimmy had gone she retrieved the story and went into Clark's 
office. "Look Clark, I have just done this story on the Mob. Could you rewrite 
it and we'll present it to Perry this afternoon."
	As Clark leafed through the papers he realised that he should probably 
send a copy to Bruce. But it was going to be published anyway, Bruce could read 
it in the newspaper like everybody else.
	He rewrote it and put it on his desk, after a decent interval he would 
take it back to Lois. He recognised the writing style that Lois had wanted him 
to disguise, and would have known what was happening even if he hadn't overheard 
her conversation with Jimmy. It was cruel to take advantage of the poor lad, but 
if he chose to give his stories away that was his lookout.
	That evening the dinner with Lois started exactly as Jimmy had dreamed. 
Firstly Lois had changed from her usually scandalous work clothes into a dress 
that was even more revealing. Then the dinner was fantastic, she had obviously 
sent out for it but that was alright, he wasn't interested in her cooking 
abilities. They didn't mention the story through the meal, but afterwards she 
left the table and lead him to the lounge.
	"Jimmy, about the story, I showed it to Perry this afternoon and he was 
ecstatic, he is going to devote an entire section of Saturdays paper to it. He 
is positive this could be our biggest expose ever. And it's all due to you." 
With that she leant over and kissed him on the mouth. She had never done this 
before, never even been this close to him and his youthful hormones were 
shooting through the ceiling. She then brought them crashing down again by 
breaking off the kiss and continuing. "He also said that I should bring Clark 
into this to add some more opinion and discussion to the subject."
	Jimmy knew what this meant, the story would end up 'by Lois and Clark' and 
his name would be relegated to the acknowledgments. Still, he didn't care, he 
had gotten what he wanted and as Lois leant forward for another kiss, he knew he 
would do it all again. And then the doorbell went off. Lois leapt up and ran to 
the door, opening it to reveal Clark, as Jimmy knew it would.
	"Hi Lois, are you ready to go? Oh, hi Jimmy, what are you doing here?" 
	"Oh, Jimmy and I were just going over some work, weren't we Jimmy?" Lois 
gushed as she lead Clark into the apartment. "Clark and I are going out tonight 
Jimmy, so if you don't mind we'll finish this up tomorrow morning." She hustled 
him out of the door before saying goodnight and setting off towards the 
elevators with Clark. Jimmy stood there watching her body under the clinging, 
short dress, until she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Then he set 
off to walk back to his own building.


	As Clark had predicted, Bruce saw the article in the Saturday paper. In 
normal circumstances he wouldn't have, but he had reinjured his knee, and so had 
been persuaded to spend the morning in bed, where he had read the papers. Even 
then he would have missed it, he was concentrating on the financial pages where 
there seemed to be a great deal of promise in the currently low position of the 
tobacco industry. But the name of Lois and Clark caught his eye and he soon 
realised the importance of the article.
	Knowing both of them as he did, he soon realised that neither of them had 
written the article. Sentence structure, vocabulary and the logical sequence of 
thought; none would have been present without someone else's help. Indeed as he 
reread the work he came to the conclusion that it had been written properly to 
begin with, and then redone by someone who didn't quite understand it. It 
wouldn't have been Perry, he was far too lazy to go to all that trouble, and 
Bruce figured he knew exactly who it was, someone with a very fast typing speed.
	More important than who had written the article, was the matter of what it 
implied. Someone in the Mob had already set out to determine the root causes of 
societal decay, had come up with an answer, and had set out to hasten the 
process. It was vital to find the source of the research and see if the process 
could be curtailed, if not reversed. It would also be useful to discover the 
source of the article, for intellectual curiosity if nothing else. It meant 
another trip, but he was injured so that a holiday could probably be justified 
anyway.


	Jimmy was part way through the paper when he got a knock on the door. 
Cautiously he checked his closed circuit TV before he moved to the door and 
opened it. "Bruce!" He exclaimed, feigning surprise. "What are you doing here?"
He really was puzzled at the visit, he knew of Bruce of course, and had met him 
a few times in Clark's company, but didn't expect a personal visit.
	"I'm here to talk to you about your story on the housing bribes." Bruces 
reply rekindled his caution. He knew that Bruce was meant to be a legitimate 
business man, but any strange interest in his story could have been directed by 
the Mob, and Jimmy didn't want to be found floating in a river.
	Bruce softened his approach. "I'm interested in the reasons for the Mob 
action. The sociological theories used to create crime ridden ghettos could also 
be used to eliminate them. Do you have any knowledge about where these theories 
come from?"
	Jimmy reflected that if Bruce was from the Mob, he would already have 
access to this information, and would be instead pumping him for his actual 
sources, so he opened up. "Yes. I found out about the bribes first, and then 
worked backwards to find a motive. Apparently the mob has this eccentric genius 
stashed away somewhere who has the ear of the Capo de Capo. His name is Lewis."

	
	Bruce was waiting at the coffee shop as he had said. Because of the light 
rain, he was wearing a dark, double-breasted coat that nearly reached the 
ground. "That isn't very smart Bruce," Clark said as he sat down opposite him, 
"In the shadow of this darkened corner, I almost thought you were dressed as..."
	"As if you could talk!" Bruce broke in, "Look at your silhouette." Clark 
turned and looked at the shadow behind him, his own coat streamed behind him to 
make the familiar, telltale shape.
	"O.K." he admitted, "Neither of us should wear long coats, and you 
shouldn't wear black. Satisfied?"
	"Well now that we have settled that, what is the story on the missing 
genius? He has the sociological equivalent of fire in his head and he appears to 
be selling out to the wrong side."
	"Fire, I'd say that this is the sociological equivalent of the atom bomb!"
	"You would, and that is because you haven't thought about it a lot. If one 
wishes to look at this analogy further, then you will find that there is a much 
closer resemblance to fire. This is the first actual breakthrough application of 
sociology, just as fire was the first breakthrough application of the physical 
technologies. Fire was the first technology that allowed man to actually make a 
change in his environment, you can't fell a forest with stone axes, but you can 
burn all of northern Africa into a desert. So too, this is the first way of 
actually planning a society that works. There have been previous attempts that 
failed, the British experiment with class removal of course...." He stopped, 
realising that Clark was looking at the menu and hadn't heard a word. "Clark, 
Clark?"
	"Ah, the meggachino deluxe with cream and extra sugar." said Clark coming 
beck to reality, at the same time as a waitress arrived at the table. "And my 
friend will have the black decaff with no sugar thankyou."
	It was statements like that, that made Bruce really dislike Clark. 
Nevertheless, it was time to get back to business. "Look, Jimmy tells me that 
the original work was done while Lewis was a postgraduate student at the state 
university. But it wasn't published because the Academic staff regarded him as a 
radical subversive."
	"Why? Didn't he back up his theories with facts, or were his conclusions 
too disturbing to their established views?"
	"Mostly I think it was because he was rich, white and liked girls."
	"Much like yourself, hey Bruce. Except the girls bit."
	"Oh yeah, you can talk, and anyway what about Selina?"
	"You call her a girl, and then see if you have any eyeballs left."
	"Well Talia then, or.." Bruce realised that he had allowed Clark's 
attention span to set the topic of the conversation. "Anyway, back to the point. 
I need someone to talk to the folk who saw the original work. And as a rich 
white boy who likes girls, I can't go myself. You probably aren't too suitable 
yourself. But you have many colleagues who suit the situation perfectly, so get 
them to do some work for a change."
	"I'll have you know that the journalistic profession is full of 
hardworking, conscientious people who put in long hard days."
	"Just get the information before they get rid of all the evidence. O.K?"


	"Oh Lois, can I talk to you?" Clark caught her as she was entering the 
lift.
	"Sure Clark, anything for you." She purred back. That set him thinking 
about Selina again. That was the only area where Bruce, and for that matter most 
guys, did have an advantage over him.
	"Clark!"
	"Oh yeah." He smiled at Lois and she started purring again. "Lois it is 
about the story on the housing stuff. We need more information about some work 
done at the university by a guy called Lewis. Someone needs to go there and talk 
to the Dons, see if there are any records left behind. And it needs to be 
someone who is not politically correctness challenged. Someone like yourself."
	"Sure, I'll get on it right away."
	Five minutes latter she was on the desk of Sunflower, their work 
experience girl from the Journalism school. Sunflower had two nose rings, one of 
which was joined to her fifth earing by a chain. She was also staring at Lois's 
neckline in the same way that Jimmy did. Yes, she was definitely going to fit in 
at the Sociology department.
	Having sent Sunflower off, she sauntered over to Clark's desk and asked if 
he wanted to go for coffee. "But Lois, we just got here. Anyway I want a 
doughnut."
	"O.K. You win, we'll get doughnuts" Lois knew how to get her way with 
Clark. Well in almost anything. There was still one thing she hadn't got Clark 
to agree to. It was something to do with his girlfriend back at high school, she 
had died in some sort of horrible accident. Clark refused to even talk about it.
	By this time they had reached the street and turned to walk along the 
footpath. Suddenly Clark pushed in front of her and staggered back. There were a 
string of cracks as a motorcycle rider emptied a revolver into Clark's chest and 
then drove away. Clark rolled into a ball at her feet as she stood staring in 
shock.
	"Clark, Clark, speak to me." She started with tears bursting from her 
eyes. 
	"Get off my chest." He breathed. She jumped back, startled. Clark unrolled 
and showed her the steel sewer plate that he had plucked from the concrete just 
before the assassin had opened fire. There were five bullet marks in the steel, 
exactly as though someone had pushed their fingers into the surface. Lois had 
thought that she heard six shots, and she couldn't remember seeing Clark bend 
over before the firing started, but with all the excitement she must have been 
confused as to the exact sequence of events. It didn't matter anyway, he was 
still alive. Now if only that hippie bitch would get him what he wanted from the 
university.


	Clark was at his desk again, leafing through the reports on this day's 
events. He was bored again. This was silly, why did he have to get a desk job, 
he should just leave now and become a cowboy, or an astronaut, or a ...
	"Umm, Clark. Ah, can I call you Clark? This is the stuff that I was doing 
for Lois but I can't find her. Could you please tell me where I could find her?"
	"Oh, Hi Sunflower. You won't find Lois here in the afternoon. She'll be 
somewhere sleeping off her lunch." Clark stopped, that reply didn't match his 
friendly, naive image. "I mean that she's been working really late and has to 
catch up on her rest. I'd love to talk to you but I just realised I have to do a 
lifestyle piece on the relaxation activities of the astronauts based in NASA's 
facilities out west, especially their horseriding. Why don't you ask Perry here? 
Bye."
	"Uh. Bye. Umm. Perry, I need to give this to Lois."
	"Well now, Sunflower is it? I think Lois is out interviewing some bigshot 
movie star."
	"Clark said she would be in bed."
	"I think we're probably both right my dear. Now you just show me what you 
have there and I'll see what we have to do about it.
	"Well, well. Lois doing follow up on a story that isn't about a handsome 
man. Wonders will never cease. Of course you did the actual work didn't you? 
Give me a summary of what you have found."
	"This is the work of Dr Lewis. He based his work on the Hawthorne 
experiments, but combined this with the work of Faust and Neuman. Apparently 
it's all to do with size."
	"Faust? Neuman? Never heard of them."
	"Neuman is a psycho-architectural designer. Faust was more direct, he used 
to work directly on people's perceptions and behaviour. Mind you Faust used his 
knowledge for his own personal gain, but he left records of his methods. No-one 
understood them until Lewis reinterpreted them in the light of the Hawthorne 
work and discovered that rather than being about alchemy, they were actual 
blueprints for getting entire communities to behave in certain ways. It is 
difficult to control one person, but ten thousand is easy. Other people have 
unearthed the principals, but because of the nature of the application, only 
those who used the secret for personal gain, had the power to be able to use 
it."
	"So how come these people don't take over the world if this secret is so 
powerful?"
	"They do! Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Coca-Cola, everyone who ensures that there 
are huge imposing pictures and symbols that dwarf people as they go about their 
daly lives. Huge buildings too, especially ones that seem beyond the scale of an 
ordinary mortal. It is the sense of being dominated that destroys people's sense 
of self worth, and they can then be controlled by anyone that offers them a 
chance to become part of something powerful, to regain importance in another 
way. There aren't any world leaders that urge smallness and comfort. No 
historical figures that fought for one horse farms."
	"Except Jefferson." Despite himself Perry was caught up in the excitement 
of the discovery.
	"Yes, except Jefferson. But for the rest of them it was the call to join 
the giant empire, because then they could compete with the hugeness of the 
steppe, or the Arabian desert, or the huge industrial architecture of the Third 
Riech, or the Castles and Cathedrals of medieval Germany.
	"Yes, people who understood the importance of psychological scale have 
always been... " She stopped and slapped herself in the forehead, jangling her 
earings and chain.
	"Been what? What?"
	"Well I've been stupid, haven't I, see you later." and with that she ran 
from the office and disappeared.
	"What a strange girl." Perry closed the folder and put it back on Lois's 
desk, before setting off to check the layouts."


	Lois came into the office at 8 pm, nursing a slight hangover. She was not 
surprised to see Jimmy still at work. She was surprised to see him at work on 
her desk. Nobody did work on her desk, nobody. Glancing around she undid her top 
two buttons and sauntered over. "Hi Jimmy, what are you doing here?"
	"Oh, ah. Hi Lois. Um. Perry said that there was a report here I should 
look at. It is about the Housing-Gate story, you know, the one I gave you, and 
you said that we could have dinner." He was doing a big-puppy-dog-eyes thing. 
Lois usually kicked puppies. She sat on the desk.
	"Yes I know. I'm terribly sorry about the other night, I totally forgot 
about my arrangement with Clark." She giggled, "I guess you have that sort of 
affect on me." Her foot lightly touched his upper thigh, accidently. "Is this 
stuff any good?"
	"It's great." He replied, unconsciously licking his teeth. "We can get a 
five week series about this, including stuff on the mental manipulation areas of 
witchcraft for the Sunday edition. Most importantly, with this information we 
can start, orchestrate, and hence own all the stories from, a full, 
congressional inquiry into the influence of the environment on mental health."
	"Environment, you mean trees and whales and stuff?"
	"No, though open prairies are an issue. I mean stuff like endless fields 
of wheat, huge featureless skyscrapers etc. Previously this sort of gigantic 
domination of the landscape was used to provide a hold on people's minds, to 
give directed violence to support the great cause. But now the violence is 
undirected and random. And it is caused by the environment."
	"What do they have to do with whales?"
	"Look, why don't we go over to your place and discuss it over dinner 
again." He sat holding his breath, stunned at his boldness and waiting for her 
answer.
	"O.K. And you can write a summary of the entire story campaign and give it 
to Perry yourself. That way Clark won't be able to leave your name off again." 
She leant forward and kissed him; a full, open mouth kiss.
	He could hardly talk as she lead him to the lift. And then she kissed him 
again as they rode down to where her car was parked in the bus stop at the front 
of the building. Clark was leaning against the car.
	"Oops, I forgot about Clark again. Oh, well, you can hand that campaign in 
to Perry tomorrow and we'll see about the dinner for tomorrow night, O.K?" She 
gave him a peck on the cheek, hopped in next to Clark and drove away. Jimmy 
ignored the bus and walked all the way home through the light drizzle.


	"Lois discovered all this did she?" Bruce had been stunned by the sudden 
developments, and had appeared at Clark's apartment carpark without warning.
	"She had some help from a work experience student, but Sunflower ran away 
halfway through. Apparently she moved to California and has started a co-
operative to help people be protected against the vast power of the internet. 
Apparently she has signed up 5000 members in the first week, at $500 per annum."
	"I didn't know anyone was scared about the size of the internet."
	"Neither did they until she started distributing a booklet on the infinite 
power of the web, and how individuals were powerless against it. It is amazing 
what some people will pay for."
	"So Lois did the rest did she? A full media campaign leading to the 
invention of an entirely new area of litigation. She even arranged the pre-
emptive buying of the stories from every major city council, now that people are 
starting to sue over being exposed to an intimidating environment."
	"Yes, that Lois is really wonderful, I wish I could... well you know..."
	"Like Lana, hey?" Bruce reminded him.
	Clark stopped and drew a breath. "Yes, like Lana."
	"Maybe if you used a lot of Gaffa tape?"
	Clark whirled around and stabbed his finger at Bruce's chest, tearing his 
tie. "You are sick, Bruce. Sick. You have a lot of psychological problems. You 
know that, don't you?" Then he turned and stamped off into the night.
	Bruce smiled in the darkness. "Gotcha!"

	Bruce still was not satisfied. The plot made sense now, but something was 
still not complete. How could the reporters have discovered something this huge? 
Why wasn't it covered up? Watergate was one thing but this was in another league 
all together. What was it that was said about Watergate? To find the villains 
you should follow the money. Where was the money going? Was it just that the 
drug trade was promoted by lawlessness, and what about the failure to cover it 
up?


	"Well, I think you have been playing us all for a bunch of fools!" Bruce's 
words were angry but his eyes were smiling.
	"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Sir" sycophanted Jimmy as Bruce 
strode into the room. Bruce pounced on the paper and his eyes lit up.
	"The stock market, eh Jimmy? To be precise, cement, steel and construction 
companies. The ones owned by the Mob, and the same ones that would be given 
large government contracts, such as housing projects. The same ones that would 
suffer a collapse in share prices once the contracts were destroyed in a huge 
scandal." Bruce gave a wink. " Now a smart man, such as myself, would guess at 
such an occurrence and sell them short as soon as the story broke, so would a 
lot of other rich, smart men, and by the time we started selling the price would 
begin to fall. I'd make a bit of money if I was fast, but it would all be over 
too quickly for more than a million or two."
	He shook the paper at the frozen youth. " But this is Friday's paper, if 
someone knew ahead of time... Why then such a person could have made a fortune, 
a real fortune, by selling at the peak of the market, and buying after the 
prices had crashed."
	"Hey, it's legal." Jimmy protested, "I wasn't the author of the story."
	"Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, I know who wrote that story. But you're right, in 
the letter of the law you are in the clear. But if I can work it out, don't you 
think other people might work it out. It might take them a bit longer but they 
will get there. And there are a lot of people who are very upset about the 
secret getting out. A lot of people with guns, knives, and not much respect for 
human life."
	Now it was Jimmy's turn to wink. "Ah, but I used phoney accounts, set up 
so that even if someone does remember the guy who made the arrangements, they'll 
get a description of Clark. And that's whose name is on the story anyway. So 
it's Clark who'll be in their sights. Literally."
	"And Lois, Jimmy, they will want to get her too."
	"Hey, Clark will protect her, he always does. I don't know why, he doesn't 
love her at all. Any normal man would in his situation. He's just speciesist I 
suppose."
	Now it was Bruce's turn to be taken aback. "Well I see you've worked 
everything out."
	"Of course, it isn't too hard if you don't classify someone as a pair of 
glasses." 'Or a pair of ears,' he added to himself.
	Bruce put his arm around Jimmy's shoulders."So now you're a millionaire 
Jimmy, have you looked at the new Lexus..."
??